Enhancing compensation for nursing apprenticeships
In a significant move towards addressing the structural injustice of unpaid nursing internships in Taiwan, a two-phase structured waged internship model has been proposed. This innovative model aims to provide nursing students with paid clinical internship opportunities, offering them a chance to gain hands-on experience and professional development while being fairly compensated for their work.
The model is divided into two distinct phases, each with its unique focus:
- Phase One: During this phase, students focus on foundational skills and supervised clinical practice. Under close mentorship, they gradually build competence, learning the essentials of the nursing profession.
- Phase Two: In this phase, students assume semi-independent clinical roles and become eligible for compensation. Their responsibilities align more closely with those of nursing staff, fostering autonomy and readiness for professional roles.
By making internships waged, the model counters the prevalent problem of students working unpaid during clinical placements, which can exploit student labor while limiting their financial stability. This structured paid internship aims to motivate students, enhance their practical skills, and support their professional identity formation without the ethical concerns associated with unpaid work.
The model ensures that payment during the performance phase is tied to outcomes, not just attendance. Students' contributions are evaluated based on their clinical skills, teamwork, patient feedback, and documentation quality. The evaluation process shifts towards performance during the final four days of the internship.
Moreover, the model decouples "tuition" from "wages," avoiding turning students into cheap labor or offering blanket pay without accountability. Compensation scales with performance, with top-tier interns receiving a NT$5,000 bonus, second tier a NT$2,000 bonus, no bonus for the third tier, and the bottom tier required to repeat the internship at their own expense.
The waged internship model also reframes learning as a value-generating process, recognising interns as active agents, and supports learning through failure. It encourages learning from mistakes, takes responsibility for outcomes, and rewards genuine contributions.
The proposed model aligns with international standards, making stipends legal and ethical imperatives. According to the Labor Standards Act, students' contributions are socially valuable and economically measurable. A just internship framework should encourage learning from mistakes, take responsibility for outcomes, and reward genuine contributions.
In summary, the two-phase structured waged internship model in Taiwan reforms the traditional unpaid clinical training by segmenting the learning experience into scaffolded phases with paid roles, thereby addressing unpaid labor concerns and promoting effective nursing education.
[1] For more information on the importance of supportive mentorship, consistent role modeling, and structured teaching programs in nursing education, please refer to relevant literature in the field.
- This waged internship model, by providing paid opportunities for nursing students, promotes their personal growth and education-and-self-development as they acquire practical skills and professional development.
- The evaluation process tied to student contributions, such as clinical skills, teamwork, and documentation quality, supports students' learning and fosters professional identity formation, contributing significantly to their personal growth and learning.
